Part 19 (1/2)

”Remember that your report may be read by anyone who goes to the library and asks to see it.”

”Which might include Fthoom.”

”Which will undoubtedly include Fthoom.”

”Will you help me?” she said sadly.

”I will certainly help you, if you wish it.”

”You mean you are a magician too.”

”I am indeed a magician too. But my similarity to Fthoom ends there, as I would most humbly beg the lady Sylviianel to remember.”

She thought of the Hall of Magicians, where he could go and she could not. She thought of Redfora; she thought of the fact that Ahathin was one of her oldest friends. She let her mind drift . . . and for a moment she was standing in the little valley with an army behind her, and the king of the pegasi was sweeping his wingtip across the bottom of a long piece of soft white paper: she could hear a faint rustling as some human hand s.h.i.+fted its grip. And the two magicians with the human king looked up. She remembered the one-the one whose smile, back in the Caves, said, It is too late. It is done. It is too late. It is done.

But the second one looked at her now and in his eyes she read, Try. Try. ”I believe you,” she said aloud. ”And I would be grateful for your help.” ”I believe you,” she said aloud. ”And I would be grateful for your help.”

”It shall be my last official act as your tutor,” said Ahathin. ”I thank you for that.”

At night-especially on the three quiet clear nights that would have been perfect for flying-she told herself that there had been many perfect flying nights they had not gone flying because Ebon wasn't there. There had been many weeks when Ebon had been at home among the pegasi, having lessons from his master, teasing his little sister, being bored by council meetings-not with her at the palace, among the humans. This had not seemed strange to her then. But that was then, she thought. That was before I visited their country, and their Caves.

She had after all told no one, not even her father, that she had spoken to other pegasi in Rhiandomeer-pegasi other than Ebon. It turned out that it was easy-miserably, painfully easy-not to tell anyone. It was not only that no one asked directly-who was going to say to her, ”Did you find, in Rhiandomeer, that you could speak to the rest of the pegasi too? That for you almost a thousand years of the way things are were nothing at all?” She had not thought of this clearly; she had been too busy bracing herself to lie. She had been, before she was brought back to the human world, so full full of her experience of the pegasi, it had seemed to her that anyone who met her might read the truth of it, somehow, off her face, her bearing, as visible as a siraga around her shoulders. of her experience of the pegasi, it had seemed to her that anyone who met her might read the truth of it, somehow, off her face, her bearing, as visible as a siraga around her shoulders.

Instead there was a new, curious distance, an awkwardness, between her and-everyone. She had thought everyone would be longing to hear about her visit, the adventure that no one else had had before. And perhaps they were. But no one asked. Even Ahathin, helping her organise her thoughts and her notes into a presentation she could give to her father and the senate, asked her no questions except about what she had already volunteered, already written down. She wanted to ask him, Do you think the pegasi shamans' magic is ant.i.thetical to human magicians' magic? Would you go to Rhiandomeer if you had the chance? Do you think it would make you confused or sick or powerless? Have the magicians ever discussed this barrier between humans and pegasi? Do they know why so few shamans come here, and why they never stay long? Is there a special group within some magicians' guild that studies the situation, like Fthoom looking for stories of friends.h.i.+p between human and pegasus? Has it taken you over eight hundred years to reach no conclusions?

She wasn't even sure she could, here, in the human country, speak to pegasi, any more than Hibeehea could speak to humans, here. The air, like the silence, lay against you differently here, and she put her hand to her cheek as if to brush back a veil. The difference did not seem to make her ill, as it made the pegasus shamans, but it made her feel as if she had not come home after all-as if some of her had not come home, the part that understood sky views and sky holds, the part that found human noise and human sitting-down banquets normal.

She had dreaded what her father might ask her about speaking to the pegasi: she dreaded it because of the look in Dorogin's eyes, because of Hibeehea's advice, because she did not want to think about why she knew in her bones it was good advice. Lrrianay, on that first incredible night when she had begun speaking to the other pegasi, had told her what the two kings hoped, and her father had noticed that her speech at the banquet had already become more fluent after only a day among the pegasi in their own country. She dreaded almost anything he might now ask her about her journey, but he asked her nothing at all. The morning he and she had seen the doorathbaa doorathbaa pegasi who had brought her back leave to fly home to their country-the morning she had had to hold on to her father to keep herself standing as she watched Ebon vanish-he had said to her afterward, ”I'm sorry, young one, that it's so hard. But I'm glad to have you back.” pegasi who had brought her back leave to fly home to their country-the morning she had had to hold on to her father to keep herself standing as she watched Ebon vanish-he had said to her afterward, ”I'm sorry, young one, that it's so hard. But I'm glad to have you back.”

But he said nothing more, that day or the following days. And she never seemed to see him except in some councillor's company, or among a group of senators-or with Fazuur and Lrrianay. She could have asked to see him alone, but she didn't. She wondered if he thought she was avoiding him. She wondered if he was avoiding her. It was so easy to avoid someone, here at the palace, with all the bustling, clattering humans, all the comings and goings, all the meetings, all the discussions, all the messages, all the different groups of people concerned about different things and insisting on the greater importance of whatever their subject, their charge, their preoccupation was.... She had never realised before that it was too much. But it hadn't been too much, before. Before Rhiandomeer and its birdsong, rustling-tree silences, the hum of the pegasi; before the taste of her porridge, of fwhfwhfwha, fwhfwhfwha, of the llyri gra.s.s. Before the Caves. Before of the llyri gra.s.s. Before the Caves. Before ssshuuwuushuu. ssshuuwuushuu.

She didn't try to speak to any other pegasus, and none tried to speak to her. She felt that if she did try, she might fall down, as she had that evening she had first spoken to Niahi and then Lrrianay. She felt that despite the things that wouldn't change-the two legs, the big hands with the rotating wrists, the lack of wings-that she was less secure in her humanness than she had been before she visited Rhiandomeer, and that was exactly what she dared not risk revealing. She dared not risk trying to speak to a pegasus. And-changed as she was in other ways-she dared not risk the despair if she failed.

She wondered if Lrrianay had said anything about her to the other pegasi at the palace, about what had happened to her in Rhiandomeer-and if so what might he have said? Had he told them not to try to speak to her-she the wingless biped who had spent five days in the Caves, who, in Rhiandomeer, could speak to all the pegasi, and not only to Ebon? Had Lrrianay guessed about the despair? Or was it only that Lrrianay agreed with Hibeehea-although Lrrianay had, in the end, said nothing about what Hibeehea had told her. Lrrianay's last words to her had been on the morning of her flight home, merely: Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. And she had replied, And she had replied, Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Her aunt or her uncle might have said just the same, and she responded the same, at the end of one of her visits to her cousins. Her aunt or her uncle might have said just the same, and she responded the same, at the end of one of her visits to her cousins.

But her state of mind was not as important as the fact that any hint of communication between the princess returned from Rhiandomeer and any other pegasus than the one she was so strangely bound to would be reported directly and immediately to Fthoom. Fthoom, the powerful and power-mad, Fthoom, about whom a pet.i.tion was gathering support and signatures, calling for him to be reinstated in his former place of authority and influence in the king's council; Fthoom, who hated her.

She thought Lrrianay was avoiding her-but she knew she was avoiding him. From the outside, she thought, the pegasi looked just as before-formal, aloof, polite, perhaps kind, but disinterested. That was a good thing, she reminded herself. She was supposed to pretend-to appear appear-that nothing had happened except that she had been gone for three weeks; except that she had made history. I won't make any of the kind of history anybody will have to learn later. I promise, she had said to her father. And he had replied, Be careful of your promises. I'm not going to hold you to this one.

The pegasi she met were careful to acknowledge her-but the pegasi were always careful to acknowledge any human bound to one of their own, and any pegasus in the palace grounds knew who the bound humans were. She wondered, as she punctiliously responded to pegasus acknowledgements, just as punctiliously as she responded to human acknowledgements, how many of the pegasi disapproved of her visit to their country. Was it that she was human, and was accustomed to reading human gestures and expressions, that she so often knew immediately which humans disapproved of her journey, or was it that humans made their disapproval so obvious? She could not read the pegasi any more-was that because she had lost what she had learnt of them in Rhiandomeer, or was it that they held themselves differently-as she felt she held herself differently-here in Balsinland?

She could almost hear Ebon saying, Disapprove? That's another of your human things. What's it for? Once something's been decided, that's it, isn't it? Disapprove? That's another of your human things. What's it for? Once something's been decided, that's it, isn't it?

But what if someone-call it dislike rather than disapprove? Hibeehea didn't like me talking to the queen when I first arrived. Hibeehea didn't want me to come at all. . . .

But she couldn't hear his answer. Faintly she heard Redfora's voice, but she couldn't hear the words she said-and furthermore she knew she was making it up, to comfort herself.

She said aloud, ”Gonoarin, wheehuf ”-”the best of good days, n.o.ble sirs, n.o.ble madams”-making the correct human motions with her human hands. She could say the pegasi vowels, the ”-”the best of good days, n.o.ble sirs, n.o.ble madams”-making the correct human motions with her human hands. She could say the pegasi vowels, the ff ff's, the the mrr mrr's, better now than she had been able to a month ago. This much at least she could keep of her journey; a few clear superficial words, a slightly greater fluency with sign.

The pegasi bowed their heads to her so that their long manes swept forward like curtains of silk: beautiful, remote, unknowable.

Of course she never went near the pegasi annex. She had no reason to.

Once she met Hirishy alone, outside her mother's rooms. She paused to make her bow and when she raised her head Hirishy was very close to her, reaching out one tiny feather-hand to stroke her cheek. Sylvi thought-she almost thought-she heard Oh, poor sweetheart- Oh, poor sweetheart- and in her mind she saw, briefly but so vividly she could not, and in her mind she saw, briefly but so vividly she could not, could could not, have imagined it, one of the cultivated hill-meadows of the pegasus land. There were pegasi hoeing between the little green rows, and a pavilion at one corner of the field: a simple, comforting, not, have imagined it, one of the cultivated hill-meadows of the pegasus land. There were pegasi hoeing between the little green rows, and a pavilion at one corner of the field: a simple, comforting, homey homey scene, nothing demanding or formidable, like the Caves, or the Dreaming Sea . . . or the palace where they stood. scene, nothing demanding or formidable, like the Caves, or the Dreaming Sea . . . or the palace where they stood.

And then Waina, who was one of the ladies-of-the-queen's-chamber on duty that week, opened the door. Hirishy moved unhurriedly away from Sylvi's side, nodded a slow human-style nod to Waina, and stood waiting for Sylvi to precede her through the door. The moment-whatever it had been-was over.

Sylvi had been rather hopelessly making notes toward the presentation she was going to have to give about her journey, writing down three things she thought she could talk about and then crossing two of them off again. It would be so much easier to have a pegasus to ask, she thought.

She sighed, and pushed herself away from the table, and went and sat on the window-sill. She had been given her own office when she began to work on dams and waterways, so she could receive reports and have a place to unroll the charts and diagrams that various people brought her. She had been offered rooms on the ground floor, where most of the rest of her family had their offices, but she had wanted something as high up as possible and was in fact in an attic.”I may try that,” her father said. ”Anyone who will climb four flights of stairs to consult me must really want my advice.”

The attics had only slightly lower ceilings than the rest of the palace-and the wind that came through the windows tasted a little more like free air than house air, although when she had chosen the rooms almost four years ago she'd chiefly been interested in the view. She looked out over one of the palace's smaller courtyards, then the outthrust bulk of the Great Hall, with a curl of old trees softening its outline. Beyond it there was parkland, and beyond that she could see the faint haze over the practise yards-and very far away, the thick dark line that was the Wall.

She sighed again, and had just stood up to go back to her desk when there was a quick knock on the door-and the head that was put round it was Danacor's.

”Oh!” she said, and ran to throw her arms around him, her mood lightening immediately.

”How's my favourite sister?” he said, smiling, but when she looked up at him she thought he looked tired and worried.”I'm sorry I wasn't here for your arrival. How did it go? Or is that a bad question?” And he looked at her table. ”When's your presentation?”

”Three days,” she said glumly. ”Three days before the party.”

”Dad'll have scheduled it before you left. And written the list of questions. Which he wrote an addendum to after he got back, am I right?”

There was a list of questions, and there was an addendum, but her father had said, ”These are only because I can't help myself. This is your your report. Tell us what you choose to tell us.” She had looked at him quickly and looked away. Lrrianay was standing just behind him; if she looked into her father's face she risked catching Lrrianay's eye. Fazuur sat at a table set end-on to Corone's desk. He looked up from the papers he was reading and smiled at her. report. Tell us what you choose to tell us.” She had looked at him quickly and looked away. Lrrianay was standing just behind him; if she looked into her father's face she risked catching Lrrianay's eye. Fazuur sat at a table set end-on to Corone's desk. He looked up from the papers he was reading and smiled at her.

Danacor added, ”I hope I'll be back in time to hear you.”

”They're sending you away again immediately?” she said, dismayed.

He sighed.”We haven't got any quiet borders left at the moment-except the Starclouds. It's just a question of how far in, and how much effort to force them back. The wild lands are the worst, but we've got Ipinay and her Queen's Own holding the most hazardous stretch of that line. I'm off to look at Pantock-there are reports of sea monsters. Sea monsters are a new one.”

Fthoom is from Ghorm, thought Sylvi, which is next to Pantock. Maybe it's his family come to visit.

”From some other messenger I'd be inclined to say, 'Mm hmm, send me another report in a month,' but the mayor of Pantock is pretty reliable. If he says sea monsters, there probably are sea monsters. But I'll be back for your party. So finish your presentation so you can enjoy it.”He looked at her, smiling.”My little sister, all grown up. Well, maybe not up, up, exactly. . . .” exactly. . . .”

”Troll,” she said equably. ”Think of all the horse-fodder bills I will save the realm by never getting tall enough to ride anything bigger than a pony.”

”Of course. My future chancellor of the exchequer thanks you.” He paused again. ”You look so much like Dad. It's uncanny.”

”And you look more and more like Mum.”

He grimaced. ”Yes. I'm the warrior, not the negotiator. You'll have to take over the negotiating when Dad retires. Farley wants to raise horses and Garren wants to find new plants for his herbalism.”

”Not me,” she said. ”I'm going to-to-” But her usual declaration of her future-I'm going to become an engineer, and build dams and bridges all up and down the Kishes and the Greentops-wouldn't come. What came to her instead was, I'm going back to Rhiandomeer, if they'll have me, and then I'm going to find out if there's a little not very interesting Cave somewhere that someone would let a human try and sculpt. A human no one would miss much, being the king's fourth child. And I'd come back occasionally, and visit you humans.

But she couldn't say that, even to Danny.